


ruby & jasper

by chewbakku



Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher Series - Andrzej Sapkowski, 僕のヒーローアカデミア | Boku no Hero Academia | My Hero Academia
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - The Witcher, Barbarian Bakugou Katsuki, Bard Kaminari Denki, Blood and Injury, Dragon Ashido Mina, Dragon Kirishima Eijirou, Dragon Prince Kirishima Eijirou, Dragon Tetsutetsu Tetsutetsu, Dragon Yaoyorozu Momo, Kaminari is Dandelion from the books, M/M, Major Character Injury, Mutual Pining, Witcher Aizawa Shouta, Witcher Bakugou Katsuki, Witcher Yamada Hizashi, i have some big plans boys strap in, this idea has lived in my head rent free for months, which is the best idea i’ve ever had, will add tags as i go i guess, you don’t need to have read the witcher series for this its fine
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-03
Updated: 2021-02-17
Packaged: 2021-03-14 13:20:39
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,029
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29171763
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chewbakku/pseuds/chewbakku
Summary: Never in his life has Bakugou gotten to look down at the world like this, to see just how far it stretches. And up here, from so high up in the sky that his lungs are starting to hurt, Bakugou feels like he could destroy every single inch of it all with one well-placed blast, like he could climb off his dragon and crush the whole continent with the heel of his boot if he felt so inclined. Up here his perch behind Kirishima’s crown of horns is beginning to feel like a throne.Bakugou pulls a strange man from death's door and finds that their fates are all entangled, knotted and mixed.
Relationships: Bakugou Katsuki/Kirishima Eijirou
Comments: 17
Kudos: 32





	1. prologue

**Author's Note:**

> this au is based more so on Andrzej Sapkowski's book series than the games or the show. if you haven't read them, well, i won't give you eight books of homework, so welcome to your not-so-standard fantasy au. but if you _have_ by chance read them lemme know if you've got any questions, bc i've tweaked plenty of shit.
> 
> updates will probably be inconsistent bc i work like a dog, but i'm already pretty invested in this so i swear i'll see it through lol. i'm really excited about this and it'll probably end up being long as fuck, but it's also my first time posting my own shit on here so bear with me.
> 
> i also draw sometimes, and will be posting art & sketches to go along with this on my [twitter](https://twitter.com/chewbakku).
> 
> and with all that being said: enjoy.
> 
> _"Your fates are all entangled, Cahir, knotted and mixed up. It's too much for my head."_
> 
> —Maria "Milva" Barring, _Baptism of Fire_ , p. 196

**Notes for the Chapter:**

>  _“I don’t want to look destiny in the eyes, because I don’t believe in it. Because I know that in order to unite two people, destiny is insufficient. Something more is necessary than destiny.”_  
>   
>  —Geralt of Rivia, _Sword of Destiny_ , p. 346

Bakugou Katsuki was not buried like a king. 

His bones do not rest in a decorated crypt, nor a deity’s temple; he never joined the kings and queens in their grand halls. He wasn’t given a proper Skelliger funeral, was never pushed out to sea and given a barbarian’s end. 

His grave is not easy to find, nor to get to—he has no need for respects paid. The trail up his mountain is a formidable climb, is underused and overgrown. But no one who has made it there has ever regretted the effort. It’s a breathtaking spot where the feainnewedd flowers grow all the way to the cliff’s edge, and they bloom year round, even in the harshest of winters; where the sun warms the stone every morning, and paints the sky in ruby and jasper every night. 

No gravestone marks his resting place, but it’s obvious all the same: he lies under a great statue, a piece of stone in the shape of his dragon. It curls up around its rider’s deathbed and naps as a dragon does atop its most prized hoard of treasures, its face painted a perfect picture of peace in its eternal sleep.

The legends say that the dragon is not a statue at all. That in Bakugou’s old age Red Riot had to carry him up the mountain himself; that when the witcher-king let out his final breath the dragon had buried him with his own hands, had laid his head over the freshly-turned dirt and let his magic turn him to stone. 

Most dismiss it as a myth. But those who have let the stories of old into their hearts, who have made the climb and seen Kirishima for themselves, who have run their fingers along the hardened edges and rocky scales—they leave knowing they’ve seen something grand, that they’ve just imposed on the eternal rest of two kings and touched a dragon in its true form with their own two hands. 

Bakugou has long since rotted and withered to bone beneath the ground. But his dragon remains unbreakable above, as he has for hundreds of years, as he will for the rest of time, never letting the witcher fade away.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _“That’s why I’m going to become a witcher, that’s why I’ve got a sword, to defend people like those in Sodden and Transriver—because they don’t have swords, don’t know the steps, half-turns, dodges and pirouettes. No one has taught them how to fight, they are defenceless and helpless in face of the werewolf and the Nilfgaardian marauder. They’re teaching me to fight so that I can defend the helpless. And that’s what I’m going to do. Never will I be neutral. Never will I be indifferent._
> 
> _“Never!”_
> 
> —Princess Cirilla Fiona Elen Riannon, _Blood of Elves,_ p. 190

Bakugou carefully picks his way through the trees, leading a nervous chestnut mare by the reins and ignoring the incessant humming of the witcher medallion that hangs around his neck. He’s on the hunt for something big, red, and scaled ( _a_ _dragon,_ everyone who’s seen it tells him, but the witcher knows better; it’s been a thousand years since someone last laid eyes on a living dragon.) 

Really, it’s most likely a wyvern—a big one, maybe, to be so easily mistaken for such a legendary beast. But Bakugou’s not worried about taking on the creature. He’s a witcher, after all; he hunts these things for a living. Plus, this one’s probably already injured, as it supposedly crashed into some poor half-elf’s cottage two nights prior.

No; there’s only a small few things that Bakugou will admit worries him, and something as weak as a wyvern isn’t one of them. What _does_ worry him is the dryad queendom of Brokilon—known among humans as the Forest of Death—which he’s been edging closer and closer to as he makes his way towards the cottage’s crushed remains, where he hopes he’ll find a gravely wounded (or already dead) wyvern still laying among the rubble. 

Even as strong as he is, he knows better than to get on a dryad’s bad side. Not when one step too far onto Brokilon’s soil is all it takes for one to send an arrow through his eye from their hiding spots within the trees. But while he can see now where the trees begin to give way to a clearing up ahead, he can hear the rushing of the Adalatte river too, the water carving Brokilon’s border into the earth. 

“Well, Roach,” he says to his horse as he ties her reins to a tree. “I should be quick. Let’s just hope the dryads decide not to fuckin’ shoot me while I’m distracted.”

With that he draws his sword, and so begins the hunt.

He’s hoping, expecting even, for this to be an easy kill. It’s just a wyvern, one that most likely crashed and injured itself—hell, it must’ve been injured already for it to have crashed in the first place—which means if it’s not still in the same spot then it’ll at least be easy to track, and killing it will just be a matter of putting it out of its misery. 

But… something’s off.

He doesn’t know what—just an odd feeling keeping him uneasy, a prickling at the back of his neck, a trail of smoke behind his open palm as his magic flares restlessly, like it knows something’s up. It’s probably just the dryads, they must have eyes on him already. It’s just the magic of the Brokilon making his medallion quiver at his throat. 

But he can’t shake it. It’s a feeling he gets when he’s about to fight something powerful—a higher vampire, or a pissed off archgriffin. It haunts him as he steps up to the pile of splintered boards and scattered belongings that was once a cabin, the strong scent of blood turning his stomach. 

There’s a wake of broken treetops and downed trees that must have been taken out in the crash, showing the creature’s path from within Brokilon itself. And okay, whatever landed on this house must have been fucking _huge_ —and, judging by the amount of blood staining the dirt and debris, almost dead. 

So, definitely too big to be a wyvern, but it’ll still be weak. He crouches low to examine the blood. It’s dry, and there’s no trail revealing where the creature must have dragged itself off to, but… there’s a _lot_ of blood here. So much that he seriously doubts the thing was able to just pick itself back up and fly away.

He circles around the building, scanning for any hints—there. A smaller trail of blood leading into the trees, tracks in the dirt where something dragged itself away; something of a much more reasonable size, something like… a person? Had someone been inside the cabin as it was crushed? Whoever it was, they seem to have been bleeding just as heavily as the beast. He groans inwardly, trying to keep quiet as he follows the trail. He hates when he has to babysit victims on the job. Especially when they’re already injured.

But maybe whoever this is can give him some answers, if they’re still alive. At least enough to figure out what, if not some freakishly large wyvern, this giant beast is so he can figure out how to kill it. Everything still just seems… off, like there’s something he’s missing, and he just can’t seem to shrug it off… 

Behind him, a bit to the left, a twig snaps. Sword still in hand, he whirls around just in time to parry the blade aimed for his back. He turns his eyes from crossed blades to his ambusher’s face, whose wild swipes force him to step back out of their range as he assesses his attacker. Wild long hair, the top half tied back out of his eyes, black at the roots but quickly melding to the blood-red of his eyes. He holds two short swords but wears only one vambrace, on the arm he holds pressed against his left side, blade held in reverse, where blood stains his polished scalemail breastplate. 

There’s one, two, three swipes before the man lets out a feral snarl and Bakugou’s attention is brought back up to bared rows of sharp, pointed teeth, to pupils narrowed to catlike slits, like a witcher’s. Unlike Bakugou’s. Another swing at his face has Bakugou leaning back, letting the blade slice the air above his chest as he kicks a foot out, aiming for his injury. It feels like kicking solid fucking rock, but the man still grunts and recoils, falling to a knee as his arms bend to cradle his bloody stomach. 

“Fucking _stop!_ ” Bakugou snaps, leveling his blade at the man. “I don’t want to hur— _shit!_ ” He pivots back as the man knocks Bakugou’s sword out of the way with one blade and slices at his wrist with the other in one swift lunge. Even gravely injured, he’s fast, every movement lithe and catlike; his swords are barely the length of his forearm, but he slips out of Bakugou’s range before he can retaliate. Warm blood trickles down his forearm, but he flexes his fist around his grip on his sword and all his fingers still feel functional, so he shrugs it off and spins to face the man again. No need to use his magic, he reminds himself. He’s working on that.

Meanwhile, the man manages to get back onto both feet, twirling a blade around and taking an odd, but practiced stance, holding both swords to his left and leaving his right shoulder wide open. He holds the stance as best he can, but Bakugou can see how he struggles to stay on his feet, can see his shaking knees and the way his whole body curls around his wound, elbow tucked in where it shouldn’t be. The glare he fixes Bakugou with looks almost blind, and the way he pins back his pointed ears and bares his teeth reminds the witcher of a cornered animal, panicked and defensive and fighting on instinct. 

Bakugou drops his stance, holding his bastard sword passively out to the side as he reaches out with his other hand, open and placating. “Alright, listen,” he says with his teeth clenched as he tries not to lose his patience. “I don’t wanna hurt you. Let’s just fucking talk about this a second.”

The man holds his shaky fighting stance, but watches him without moving, so the witcher raises his eyebrows and keeps talking with a gesture to the man’s bloodied armour.

“You’re hurt. I think I’m hunting whatever did it to you; I’m a witcher—”

A snarl erupts from the man’s throat as he lunges—only to fall to the ground with a grunt halfway through. 

Bakugou eyes the man’s now-still body and _hmph_ s. “Guess he doesn’t like witchers,” he grumbles to himself, scowling as he sheathes his sword and toes gently at the man’s arm. 

He doesn’t move, but he’s still breathing, which Bakugou can tell by the sucking noise made by each intake of breath—quiet, but a stomach-turning sound all the same. The witcher sighs—he hates having to play the medic more than anything—and crouches to carefully flip the man over and examine his wound, whose eyes remain closed as he groans quietly in response.

Meanwhile, his witcher’s medallion has been going nuts around his neck, tugging hard at its chain as Bakugou kneels over the man. It must not have been Brokilon itself causing the amulet to shake, then, he realizes. Maybe it was just the magic of the man before him. He takes a moment to look him over, at the row of pointed teeth peeking out from between parted lips. His ears, decorated with rubies and silver, are pointed too—like an elf’s, but not; it looks like they can swivel and move almost like a horse’s. 

But a heartbeat is all Bakugou gives himself to study him, much more concerned at the moment with keeping the man alive than with figuring out who (or what) he is. His attention shifts to the breastplate and he realizes it isn’t a breastplate at all; that the scalemail is worn more like a mantle, draped over the chest and shoulders. Quickly, he pulls it off and unlaces the leather cuirass underneath, the soft material mangled in spots and covered in blood. Next comes the ruined shirt, and all three items are cast aside out of the way as Bakugou assesses the damage across the man’s torso. 

Four great gashes line his right side, tanned skin parted by valleys that take the echoed shape of giant claws. He’s clearly lost a lot of blood from it; Bakugou’s honestly not even sure how the guy is still alive. He can already tell by the smell that the wound is infected, and the looks of his inflamed flesh only confirms it.

“Shit,” the witcher hisses. He needs to bind the wound and get the man somewhere with running water so he can flush it out. And herein lies the issue: the only running water nearby is the river that marks the border into dryad territory. And the only cloth he has that’s big enough to tie around such large gashes is the blood-red, fur-lined cloak his father gave him when he was 15, when the witchers took him.

But Bakugou is a witcher too now, whose sole job is to protect people from monsters. And in front of him lies a man on the verge of death from a wound inflicted by a monster. It’s not a hard choice to make—he doesn’t even pause, doesn’t have time to. Just grabs the bottom edge of his cloak and hacks it off so that it now only falls to just above his knees, wrapping the material twice around the man’s torso and tying it as tightly as he can. Then he tosses an arm over his shoulder and heaves the man up by it; he’s heavy, taller and bigger than Bakugou, but the witcher can manage. He tries dragging him towards the river but quickly resorts to slipping an arm under his legs to carry him to the riverbed. 

As he lifts the man he groans, loud and agonizing, his head lolling to knock against Bakugou’s—who feels something oddly hard bump against the side of his head. He turns, confused, to see three sets of horns crowning the man’s head, half-formed, growing and shifting in shape as his hair twists and untwists itself like it’s alive. They glitter with jewels inlaid in metal that currently looks as indecisive as water, silvery and stuck in a state somewhere between embellishing his horns and decorating his hair as charms. 

“What the fuck—” Bakugou jolts and nearly drops him in his surprise. 

As he stares at the horns, he sees a patch of tiny red petals poke out from the sweaty skin of the man’s cheek, blossoming there for a moment before receding back into his skin. They look like… scales? 

“What the hell are you?” The witcher demands an answer from an unconscious, pale, sickly face. Of course he gets none, but…

(But red scales and twisted horns, pointed teeth and slits for pupils. But the hum of Bakugou’s medallion flares when he leans in close. But _no, sir witcher, what I saw was surely not a mere wyvern, I swear it._ But behind him is a pool of beast’s blood with no body to claim it—only a man who sprouts red scales when he’s feverish.)

...but Bakugou’s starting to figure out the answer for himself.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> “The hissing, venomous, feathered whistle and the short thud of the arrowhead cutting into the wood. _Not a step further, man,_ said that whistle and that thud. _Begone, man, get out of Brokilon at once. You have captured the whole world, man, you are everywhere. Everywhere you introduce what you call modernity, the era of change, what you call progress. But we want neither you nor your progress here. We do not desire the changes you bring. We do not desire anything you bring._ A whistle and thud. _Get out of Brokilon!”_
> 
> —Andrzej Sapkowski, _Sword of Destiny,_ p. 247

Bakugou keeps doing until there’s nothing left to do. He lays the man out on his now-mangled cloak and gently flushes out the wound, retrieves Roach for what first aid and ointments he has packed in her saddlebags, wets cloth in the river to lay on the man’s feverish skin. Once he’s done all he knows about healing he patches up the slice on his own wrist, then goes back to fetch the armour and swords that had been left behind in his haste earlier.

The man hasn’t stopped shifting since he fell unconscious, horns and scales forming only to retreat into hair and skin again. He by all means should be dead already with the state he’s in, but Bakugou looks at his face, his small furrowed eyebrows and his heaving breaths and the slight curl of his lip, and sees a man who’s _fighting_ it with everything he has. 

And the witcher is not inexperienced in death—he’s seen what the things he hunts can do to someone, he’s been too late to save people before, he knows the price of failure. So he doesn’t know what about _this_ guy in particular has got him so worked up. What he does know is that the thought of sitting here to watch him die makes his teeth clench, and the thought of climbing onto Roach and turning his back on him makes his stomach turn.

But he can’t _do_ anything more about it. He sure as hell can’t drag him to a Temerian town for a healer when he has horns sprouting from his head; they’d burn him at the stake or something. He can’t even just let out the anxiety that’s started to bubble in his chest—there’s no one to yell at but his horse, who’s skittish enough already, and he definitely can’t take it out on a tree or do anything else with his magic (by some miracle the dryads have decided not to put an arrow through him from the other side of the river yet, and he’d certainly not like to invite them to by bringing fire into the forest or abusing a tree.)

He pauses his doing only long enough to let Roach have a drink before deciding to busy himself with scanning the forest for the healing plants he can recognize. He walks the trees and scrounges around for plants like celandine and scarix, not finding much but needing to keep occupied. 

Only when the sky begins to darken does he finally sit down next to his charge to just… _look_. Not at the injuries or the oddities, just at… him. 

Bakugou’s immediate thought is just _strong_ , and he likes that. 

The man’s ears may be pointed, but with the wide breadth of his shoulders and the thick ropes of muscle he’s the complete opposite of elven. His hair (when it is hair, at least) is wild and unruly despite half of it being tied back, its onyx roots giving into a deep, bloody red that looks like wine in the fading blue light of twilight. 

It’s practically drowning in rubies, though when Bakugou studies the strange jewelry that cascades through the hair at the top of his head he starts to notice different gemstones too—red jasper and moonstone, a few impressive diamonds, even some small chunks of obsidian. There’s also, however strange, a few scales and spiked spines mixed in, red and black and set into silvery metal. 

So, his second thought is that this guy must be pretty goddamn rich.

He looks over at the scalemail armour laying in the grass. It’s detailed and kind of mesmerizing to look at, a shining sea of individual metal scales. But some of them aren’t metal at all; it has real scales too, little red patterns in patches on the shoulders, across the chest, one small red scale at the throat.

He sighs, tossing the mantle back onto the ground. Maybe he’s some kind of… dragon noble, or something. Or maybe he won’t wake up and Bakugou will never know. 

He hears a soft moan and turns to see another patch of scales roll across the man’s chest, this time with a small patch of fur and… something else, a rough, rocky texture that races over his skin. He shivers and shudders but doesn’t wake, tossing his head to the side before relaxing into stillness again.

And for some reason Bakugou looks at his face and just, wants. He doesn’t know what, or why, but he wants—to ask him questions, to spar with him, to see what form he takes when he lets the scales take over, to know more.

He shakes the thought from his head, deciding he’s had enough of staring. The light is starting to fade more quickly now, and he can’t light them a fire when they’re at the edge of Brokilon. So as darkness falls over the two, he climbs into his bedroll and dreams. 

His last thought is, _I can’t let this man die_.

* * *

_“Feainnewedd,” someone calls out to him. A name, but not his._

_He turns to see red eyes, bright as rubies, deep as blood. A flash of scales, of teeth._

_He blinks, and when he opens his eyes he’s looking at his own reflection. It’s not his eyes staring back at him, though, red and bloody too, but his mother’s, wearing the Skelligan crown on her head and black war paint on her face._

_He blinks again and suddenly there’s flames racing up his arms as he leaps from behind a crown of black horns. His fingers deftly trace out runes in the air as he shouts something in Elder Speech with his mother’s voice; and it’s a fire spell, not his own magic, that pours from his palms._

_Another blink. His hands are splayed over cold scales He cries out in anguish, but he doesn’t know why._

_Blink. He turns to Masaru, a heavy smile on his lips._

_‘Dad,’ he wants to say. He wants to speak in his own voice, to ask what’s going on, but he can’t._

_He blinks again and looks up to stars that shine in a sky he can no longer reach. No longer? No, he never reached… But he wants to fly, he misses it, the wind in his hair and the way mountains become anthills…_

_One final blink, and darkness._

* * *

The second day is worse than the first. 

Bakugou doesn’t know how long it’ll be until the guy wakes up. He only has rations for a few days, and no fire means he can’t cook any game… and besides, how is an unconscious person supposed to eat? To drink? 

The man, if anything, seems to be doing worse. He sweats and shivers even more, his skin scalding to the touch. The horns and scales are nearly a constant now, though. Bringing him into a human town (...which is pretty much every town in the Northern Kingdoms outside of Dol Blathanna) could be as much a threat to his life as this infection, but… soon he may have no choice. Bakugou’s no healer; sure, he’s had to do some emergency first aid before, but nothing like this. 

Fuck. All he wanted was to kill a wyvern, dammit. He doesn’t know what he should do. There’s nothing for him to do, really, but waste the day away worrying about it. 

Which is what he does, until near the end of the day, when he hears the man’s laboured, shuddering breaths falter, then stop.

“No,” Bakugou growls, rushing to kneel beside him. “Shit. No!” Straddling him, he places his hands on the man’s chest and begins to push, the way Aizawa taught him. “Don’t you fucking dare,” he snarls, counting the compressions in his head. “Fuck you, I could have just fucking left you. Don’t you dare.” He hits thirty and pinches the man’s nose to breathe air into his lungs, twice, before pushing into his chest again.

“Come _on_.” The snarl comes out more as a whisper, a plea. He reaches thirty again, brings his lips to the man’s and breathes for him once more.

Finally, with a splutter and a cough, the man begins to breathe again.

“Fuck,” Bakugou whispers, leaning back and fisting a shaky hand into his hair. “Fuck!” He has to close his fists around the crackling of his magic, which refuses to stop burning his palms.

“Dammit,” he mutters, standing unsteadily to stomp over and kneel at the river’s edge. “No fire, you fucking idiot!” he shouts at himself, plunging his sparking hands into the cold water, wrapping his fingers around smooth pebbles until he can rein his magic in. 

He takes a few steadying breaths. When he looks up, he freezes. 

There, on the other side of a river, stands a dryad, her arrow already nocked. She stands in the cover of trees, but clearly isn’t making any attempt to hide. He’d never even hope to see her if she was.

What he knows he should do is slowly, carefully put his hands in the air and back away from their forest. But… he can’t. He can’t help it—his lip curls to bare his teeth at her. He doesn’t move.

Not until she pulls back the bowstring, when he dives to the side as she sends the arrow flying into the rocks he knelt on. But it doesn’t strike hard or true; instead it splashes lazily into the shallow water at his left. He doesn’t let his eyes leave her long enough to inspect it until she lowers her bow and turns to walk into her forest, disappearing between the trees.

_Every time I think shit can’t get any weirder, it does,_ he thinks, looking over at where the arrow landed. He picks it up and sees a small pouch tied to its shaft, just behind the arrowhead. In it is a salve and a small vial of liquid. 

He looks over to his patient, listens to make sure he’s still breathing. He remembers the wreck of the cabin, the trail of downed trees pointing straight into Brokilon.

So the dryads want to help him, he figures. Oh, what the hell. He gets to work on applying the salve; then he stares at the vial for a minute before he decides it looks enough like a witcher potion and pours it into the man’s mouth.

But when evening comes the man doesn’t seem any better—if anything he seems more restless, his skin even clammier. Bakugou goes to sleep with a sour feeling in his chest.

He dreams again tonight—this time of Yagi and the zeugl, of the day his magic first manifested. Of the awful sludge, of panic and drowning, of fear of the fire that kept bursting from his own hands. Thinking Deku’s face would be the last thing he’d see. 

But he doesn’t wake up with a crack and a shout the way he usually does. No, in the dream, he feels something take him by the burning hand and pull him free… 

* * *

“A barbarian witcher, camping out for two days just to take care of some stupid—damn, I don’t even know what the hell he is,” Bakugou huffs. “Fucking ridiculous.”

Roach only chews in response as Bakugou offers her breakfast. 

“I’m shit at this. Fucking Aizawa was always on my ass about it, said killing monsters was only part of being a witcher. But at least he taught me enough to keep this guy alive. At least for now.”

“Who’s… Aizawa?” A voice croaks from behind him.

His head snaps around immediately, Roach abandoned in favour of rushing to stand over the man, who stares up at him with wide, wakeful eyes.

“You’re awake,” Bakugou states bluntly.

“Uh, yeah.” The man huffs a laugh, then hisses and brings a hand up to his side, still wrapped in Bakugou’s cloak. His eyes flick around, taking in his surroundings. “Who were” —he has to pause to clear his throat— “...who were you talking to?”

“My horse.” Bakugou glares when he hears another tired huff of laughter. “Got a fucking problem with that?”

“Aha, no,” the man says with a lazy wave of his hands, “it’s sweet.”

“It’s fucking _what_ —”

“Am I your prisoner?” He blurts it out quickly before Bakugou can bitch, his expression hard.

“My _what_?” Bakugou snaps, looking taken aback. “Where the fuck would you get that idea?”

“Well, for one, I’m unarmed and you’re not.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Bakugou says, stepping over to retrieve the man’s swords from his organized array of gear and bags laid out across the ground. “Here.” He tosses the blades down and hands over a waterskin, which immediately takes the man’s full attention. “Easy,” the blond snaps when he quickly begins to chug. “Don’t rush. You’ll puke.” He fishes around in Roach’s saddlebags for some strips of dried meat, passes one over as he sits on the bedroll laid out at the man’s side. 

“So,” he says, staring. “Gonna tell me who you are or what?”

The man tries to sit up fully, wincing, opting instead to push himself back to lean against a tree before taking the offered food. “Kirishima Eijirou,” he says.

He holds out a hand and Bakugou takes it, both of their handshakes firm and strong. “Bakugou.”

The man—Kirishima—tilts his head. “Just Bakugou?”

“Bakugou Katsuki,” he huffs, looking away with a scowl.

“Well,” Kirishima says, averting his eyes too, “I—I don’t really remember all that much, but—I’m sorry for attacking you, Bakugou. And you said… two days? You’ve been taking care of me that long?”

“Yeah, I spent two fucking nights here making sure you didn’t die.”

Kirishima blinks at him. “Why?” He asks honestly, giving Bakugou a scrutinizing look.

Bakugou’s quiet for a moment, staring at the dark stain of blood that mars the red of his cloak, eyebrows furrowed. “I don’t know,” he admits. “Just couldn’t walk away.”

“But you _could_ have, though,” says Kirishima, who reaches out to grab him by the forearm. “You saved my life. Thank you.” 

He pins Bakugou to the spot with his earnest gaze. The witcher sees a small fleck of violet hidden in red eyes, and for a moment he sees a flash of those ruby eyes from his dream two nights ago, the memory of it making his head spin just slightly. 

“Whatever,” he grumbles, breaking eye contact. “Thanks for finally waking the hell up. I wasn’t sure you would.”

“Yeah, me neither,” Kirishima agrees. The hand on Bakugou’s forearm, rather than pulling back, gently lifts it to examine the gash on the witcher’s wrist. “Was this me?”

Bakugou grunts an affirmation.

“Sorry,” Kirishima says again.

“It’s nothing,” Bakugou, for some reason, insists, even though he responds to most apologies and thank-yous with little more than a _fuck off_. “Really. I kicked your wound first. And I could tell you barely had a goddamn clue what was happening in the moment. I don’t even know how the fuck you were on your feet with an injury like that.” He squints at Kirishima, eyebrows knitting together. “The hell happened to you, anyway?”

“Oh,” says the redhead, looking down at his bloodied chest like he’d somehow forgotten about it. “I, uh, I was running. And they caught me.”

“They?”

“My people,” Kirishima explains, staring a bit sadly across the river. “We… we can’t leave Brokiloén. But I decided to anyway. So they, uh, they tried to stop me.” 

Bakugou raises an eyebrow, unimpressed by the vague answer. “By what, sicking a fucking basilisk on you?”

Kirishima looks away, awkwardly rubbing the back of his neck. “Something like that, yeah.”

“‘ _Something like that,_ ’” the witcher echoes, scoffing. “What even are you? Some kind of—”

“An elf,” Kirishima says, a bit too quickly and loudly.

“Oh, sure,” Bakugou sneers. “And _I’m_ a fucking gnome.”

Kirishima glares at him, fine eyebrows furrowing as he pouts. “Well what are _you_ , then? Are you supposed to be some kind of witcher? That’s bull.”

The sneer turns into a glare as Bakugou’s teeth grind and his temper flares.

“You’re not mutated, you’re as human as it gets. What, did you steal that medallion off a corpse or something?”

Bakugou feels the blood rush to his head in anger, and a twang of panic beneath that. How? How can he tell, and so easily at that?

“What the fuck do you know about witchers?” Bakugou snarls, nearly forgetting himself and shoving at Kirishima’s injured chest. He’s on his feet instead, pointing rudely into the redhead’s face. “I _am_ a fucking witcher, I passed Aizawa’s trials, I _earned_ this medallion!”

“Geez, alright,” says Kirishima with a raise of his brows, hands coming up in mock surrender. “I get it, we’ve all got our secrets, relax. I won’t push that button again.” He gestures back to Bakugou’s bedroll. “Siddown, would you.”

Grumbling something along the lines of _fuck you and your secrets,_ Bakugou obeys, grumpily plopping back down next to Kirishima with his arms crossed. 

“So what’s next, then, now that I’m awake?”

Bakugou sideyes him, still crabby. “I get you into a town, or wherever the hell you need to be, in one piece. Keep it within Temeria, though; I won’t take you out somewhere far as fuck, I have shit to do. And then I’ll find my next job and that will be that.”

“Would you… want help?”

“ _Help?_ ” The witcher snaps, incredulous. “The hell do you think I need help with?”

“No, no, I didn’t mean it that way,” Kirishima rushes to explain. “I just—I owe you a great debt, Bakugou. A life debt. I’d have died out here without you, I know I would’ve. And all I have to offer you is the armour off my back or my services in return.” He bows his head at the witcher as best he can with the way he’s leaning against the tree. “I know you’d have to wait for me to heal first. But I thought I’d ask.”

“I’m not taking your armour,” Bakugou dismisses immediately. “I don’t need anything from you.” 

“I know,” Kirishima murmurs, his head bowing further. “But _I_ need to repay my debt. If you’ll have me,” he adds. “Please.”

And Bakugou almost says no—in fact, the word is halfway out his mouth. But it dissolves before it can get past his teeth. 

Kirishima seems strong. Capable. And for some reason Bakugou just feels… relaxed, talking to him, natural; which feels unnatural in and of itself. Bakugou doesn’t work with people, he doesn’t _enjoy_ people. But neither did Aizawa, and…

He remembers, suddenly, something Yamada had said to him years ago. _Witchers don’t_ have _to work alone, young Bakugou,_ he’d said, standing at Aizawa’s side, matching cat medallions hanging from their necks. 

He sighs. _Fuck it,_ he thinks.

“You really think you can handle a witcher’s work?” He asks, a slight smirk on his lips. 

Kirishima grins right back at him, and Bakugou stares at the points of his teeth. “I can handle a lot more than that,” he says with certainty. And Bakugou believes him.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _“‘I’ll pay back what I owe,’ he said quietly. ‘I won’t forget. It may happen that one day you’ll be in need of help. Or support. A shoulder to lean on. Then call out, call out in the night. And I’ll come.’”_
> 
> —Geralt of Rivia, _Baptism of Fire,_ p. 22

“Take my bedroll,” Bakugou says as they bed down that night. “I want my damn cloak back.”

“Huh?” Kirishima tilts his head curiously, then looks down at the cloth that’s still being used to bandage his torso. “What, this?”

“No, dumbass. You’re laying on the rest of it.”

“Oh,” Kirishima says, looking beneath him as if only now noticing the pillow of plush white fur offered by the cloak beneath his head. He shifts off it, trying hard not to wince at the movement and (mostly) succeeding. “Sorry. Here.”

Bakugou takes the two-thirds that’s left of his cloak without a word, grumpily tossing it around his shoulders and plopping onto the ground. Kirishima looks at him, and there’s a pause, a silence weighed a beat too long as the redhead decides how much to press for, turning questions over in his head. “Is it important to you?” He asks finally, eyeing Bakugou up and down in his crimson islander cloak. 

“Hah?” Bakugou snaps, his glare already turning defensive.

Kirishima just smiles at him. “Come on, you know what I mean. The cloak.”

Bakugou _hmphs_ and turns his head away. “It was my father’s,” he grumbles at the bushes to their right. “Gave it to me when I left.”

“When you left? Like, to become a witcher?” Kirishima asks, interest piqued, continuing on when Bakugou only grunts in answer. “So you _chose_ to leave? I thought witchers were just… taken, as boys.”

“I _was_ taken. But I chose not to go back.” The witcher squints at him curiously from the corner of his eye, shoulders hunched. “Why the fuck do you know so damn much about witchers? I thought you’ve been hiding in Brokilon your whole life. Not a whole lot of witchers to worry about there.”

“Uh...” Kirishima trails off, looking suddenly very uncomfortable, eyes flitting away. Bakugou’s forced to stare at the glinting jewelry in his hair instead, at a curious black spike the length of his pinky, tipped in red and braided into thick locks. “We teach ourselves about…a lot of things. In case we’re ever forced to leave, I guess… Or, I don’t know, in case we’re ever found,” he explains with a shrug and a smile that looks more guarded than anything else.

“Tch. Still don’t see what the hell a witcher would have to do with any of that shit,” Bakugou grumbles. 

But… it would make sense, he realizes, for a race of dragon-people to fear witchers—hired beast hunters, man-made mutations created just for killing monsters. For how would they know that in Kaer Morhen’s oldest witcher books, dragons were taught to be a highly intelligent species, worthy of respect? That Aizawa’s always taught him that anything that can speak deserves to at least have their story be heard?

Kirishima’s mouth hangs open and Bakugou can see the walls building up as the redhead tries to come up with a lie. He sucks in a breath but no words come out; his sharp teeth click back together and the witcher hears the snap of a dragon’s jaws.

If he’s right about any of this, then right now, right here in front of him sits a dragon—a _dragon_ , flinching and shrinking away from Bakugou and his questions the way a tiger cowers at the sight of fire. A dragon, who bowed his head to the witcher and swore a life debt to him. Who can apparently tell that the witcher _isn’t_ really a witcher by anything but profession; and yet he won’t ask about it, won’t push too hard, respecting the boundary Bakugou quickly set despite both of their burning desires to _know_.

“We-”

“Fucking—nevermind,” Bakugou huffs before Kirishima is forced to feed him some horseshit response. “Forget it. We all have our secrets, like you said.” He sighs and leans back to bury his face into the fur of his cloak, turning his back to the injured dragon and listening to his breath of relief. “Just get some rest, so we can get the hell away from Brokilon and sleep next to an actual fucking fire.”

* * *

Again, Bakugou dreams of the damn zeugl. 

It’s not that his nightmares plague him _that_ often, really. But when they do they tend to come in threes, so Bakugou honestly expects it, the flashes of fear and confusion and should-be-forgotten green eyes being dragged to the forefront of his mind once again. 

He doesn’t expect the hand that, for the second time now, wraps its fingers around Bakugou’s sparking palm and pulls him from his own dream. And he certainly doesn’t expect the hand to be _real_ —but no, Yagi’s eyes aren’t red, his hands don’t feel like the safety of a cliff face, _don’t let go, don’t let go…_

“Bakugou, hey,” a hushed voice calls from somewhere far away, a gentle tide to carry him back to reality. “Come back to me.”

The witcher blinks and splutters, trying to cough out the stinging feeling of sludge pouring down his throat. For a moment Kirishima’s rocky fingers are trapped in a deathgrip, and Bakugou’s eyes are squeezed shut; but when he feels his forehead connect with a warm shoulder he’s finally pulled back into the present.

“Shit,” he chokes out, dropping the dragon’s hands like red-hot coals and pushing away. This is why he should just stick to traveling alone. Fuck.

“Sorry,” Kirishima murmurs, his voice a soothing velvet purr. “Your magic was going off in your sleep.” His hand returns to Bakugou’s just to brush against the back of the witcher’s fist as it tightens around still-unruly sparks. Bakugou, too occupied with getting his breathing under control to really object, watches hazily as Kirishima slips his fingers back into the sparks. “I didn’t want you to hurt yourself. And _my_ magic protects me from yours, see?” 

The dragon holds up his other hand to demonstrate the hardening of his skin, and in any other context Bakugou would have been mesmerized by the jagged lines and sharp edges traced into Kirishima’s arm; but right now all Bakugou really has the mind for is to glare a little dumbly. 

“Kinda perfect, isn’t it?” 

Kirishima smiles warmly, voice still breathy and soft, and for the first time maybe ever Bakugou doesn’t find himself feeling ashamed of being woken by nightmares like a helpless, frightened child; nor pitied as if he’s plagued by some life-shattering curse. 

He looks at Kirishima in the speckled moonlight the trees allow through their branches, and for once the darkness doesn’t feel so suffocating as the fear from the dream ebbs away. Something about that scares Bakugou all the more, though, as he looks down at the hand that’s already grasping desperately at Kirishima’s again, though his magic is back under control. He pulls his hand away—quickly, but gentler this time, even if the dragon’s palm suddenly feels scalding hot against his own. 

He _really_ should stick to traveling alone. 

Coughing again, he shifts backwards and finds his voice, his shoulders rising defensively like hackles. “My—my magic,” he growls at Kirishima, who turns away to sniff oddly at the air. “What, do you just know every—”

“Shh.” Bakugou freezes as Kirishima’s left hand comes up abruptly, his right reaching for the twin swords that lay in the grass beside his borrowed bedroll. His ears turn with his attention, perking up to listen for something over the witcher’s shoulder, who spins and strains to hear something for himself. It takes him much longer than it took the dragon to detect, but he does catch the sound of footsteps, coming from the direction of the ruined cabin. 

Shoving all thoughts of his nightmare aside, he draws his own sword and leaves its scabbard where it lays. “Find some cover or something,” he growls to Kirishima as he pushes himself to his feet. “I’ll deal with it.”

“What—no, Bakugou, wait,” Kirishima whispers hurriedly, grabbing at the witcher’s wrist. 

“Don’t fucking start with me, Red, your guts are practically falling out of your stomach with that gash. Stay here.” 

“Hang on, Bakugou, listen—dammit,” Kirishima curses at the witcher’s back as he stalks into the trees. Pressing a hand over his healing wound, the dragon begins to unsteadily push himself up onto his knees. 

The witcher, meanwhile, struggles to see through the darkness without a witcher’s mutated eyes; but it forces him to focus, clears his head of his dream’s lingering anxiety. 

His grip on his sword tightens. Like hell he’d let anyone take Kirishima back, keep him a prisoner of the forest. He got out and almost died for it. Bakugou’s teeth grind as he stalks his way to the cabin for a second time, staying hidden in the cover of trees that give way to a small clearing full of debris and blood. 

There’s a man crouched low, examining the dried blood as Bakugou had, moonlight glinting off scalemail and silver hair as he reaches out to touch the dark stain. “He’s not dead,” he murmurs quietly. “He’s _not_ —he _can’t_ be.”

“Well, he’s not _here,_ ” snaps a woman behind him as she examines the wreckage, her voice strained. Bakugou takes one look at her—pink skin, with pink scales adorning her scalemail to match, funny little horns curling from her head—and knows, for certain, that he’s right about the whole dragon thing; because, well, there’s no way to pass her off for an elf, or even some kind of dryad. 

He has no time to dwell on it, though—not when he turns his head to lock eyes with a woman with sharp eyes, a raven-black ponytail, and a bow aimed at his chest. 

_Oh, another lady pointing her bow at me,_ Bakugou thinks snidely as he squares his stance, holding the hilt of his sword with both hands. _How fucking original._

“Where is he?” She asks coldly, teeth bared and a command in her tone. “ _Where_ is the prince?” 

Both pink and silver heads spin, Bakugou’s cover blown. 

But, okay, hang on. “Prince?” 

Beinga dragon is already enough, but for Kirishima to be the _prince_ of them… 

“I don’t know shit about any princes,” Bakugou spits, shifting his weight and holding his sword low. 

“Wait, Yaoyorozu,” the silver-haired man calls, standing; but he draws his short swords, almost identical to Kirishima’s, from the small sheath strapped to his vambrace. “Can you tell us what happened here, sir?” 

“Of course he can. He’s a witcher,” Ponytail retorts, her eyes flicking to the medallion around Bakugou’s neck, who bristles at her. “He’s probably the one who made this mess.”

“A witcher?” The man says with suspicion, eyeing the blond skeptically. “I mean, are you—”

“What happened here isn’t any of your damned business,” Bakugou growls through clenched teeth, eyes locked on the woman named Yaoyorozu. 

“You murderer,” she snarls back at him, ears pinned back in anger. 

Bakugou sees her shoulders flex and pivots on his heel, lunging to swing upward with his sword and slice at the air in a wide arc. He feels the arrow’s shaft splinter against the strength of his blade and grins at her, letting out the breath he’d been holding. Aizawa always hated watching the blond deflect an arrow—and for good reason. It’s always as scary as the first time he’d done it.

But there’s no time to bask in it. Already she’s reaching for another arrow, and the other man is running towards them now, the pink-skinned woman hot on his heels; Bakugou’s not even sure yet if they intend to stop Yaoyorozu from trying to kill him or help her. He rushes at her, launching from his lunge into a sprint and letting his swing carry his sword into his right hand. 

He doesn’t make it to her, though—they all freeze when Kirishima’s voice pours over the four of them, Yaoyorozu’s eyes wide and bow half-drawn.

“Stop.” Kirishima’s order holds the authority of a prince, his tone leaving no room for argument. He’s somewhere behind Bakugou, who’s too busy watching the archer’s every movement to look. “Lower your weapon, Yaoyorozu.” 

And okay, Bakugou has to look now; he’s never _liked_ hearing that tone of voice before, but fuck. He swallows and spares a glance over the fur of his cloak at the prince, who squares his shoulders and dares Yaoyorozu to disobey him with his glare despite the white-knuckled grip he keeps on the tree he’s leaned against.

“Your Highness,” she breathes, relieved, dropping to kneel and bow her head.

“Get up.” Kirishima looks to the other two, whose knees are also already halfway to the ground. “All of you, get up. Hagakure is behind me. She’s unconscious. Take her and leave.”

“Come on, Kirishima, you know we can’t do that,” the silver-haired man says a little sadly as he stands. 

“You can, and you will.”

“Eiji, please.” The pink woman takes a step and a half forward, but stops when Bakugou’s glare turns to her. “I convinced your mom to let us try and speak with you first, but if—if you don’t…” She cuts off with a sharp breath, looking about ready to cry. “ _Please_ come home. Don’t make us do this.” 

“ _Make_ you?” Kirishima snaps, surging forward in anger but staying anchored to his tree. “As if _I’m_ not the one whose hand’s been forced? No, Mina, I won’t go back with you. And you won’t kill me either; none of you will, because you know that this isn’t right. We can’t hide with the dryads forever.”

The moment of silence that follows is all that’s needed for Bakugou to know that the prince’s words ring true. But then Yaoyorozu is lifting her bow and aiming it at the witcher again, albeit without drawing it this time.

“Perhaps not you, sir, but what of _him_?” She says, glancing around at all the blood staining the ruined cabin, the dried pool at her feet. “Did he not do this to you?”

“I haven’t touched a hair on his fucking head—”

“My _mother_ did this to me,” Kirishima says coldly, glancing down at his bandaged torso and pressing his free hand to it. “Not him—he saved my life, actually. Now _lower your weapon._ Don’t make me say it again.”

The archer obeys—they’re outnumbered and Kirishima bears a serious injury, but the prince is still the one making threats. Bakugou nearly barks out a laugh at that but wisely keeps his mouth shut, opting instead to start taking slow steps backwards, towards Kirishima.

“Still,” says the man with steely hair, looking conflicted. “He obviously knows too much.”

“He knows no more than he needs to.” Kirishima holds a hand out as Bakugou reaches his side, lowering the witcher’s sword from where he still holds it out defensively. “Only that we are elves from Brokiloén.”

The pink woman and the silver man exchange an odd look before the man speaks. “And you trust him not to tell anyone else that?” 

“I do.”

The two men stare each other down, Kirishima’s glare hard and absolute against the other’s indecision and wilting resolve. Bakugou glances between the two, about to say something for himself before the silver man finally sighs and returns his swords to their scabbard. 

“Fine,” he says, stepping backwards in defeat.

“ _Fine?_ ” Yaoyorozu hisses. “Really, Tetsutetsu? Just like that?”

“Yeah, really,” responds Tetsutetsu (whose name Bakugou finds hilariously redundant, which he’d definitely be poking fun at right now were four dragons not currently in the middle of arguing over his life), crossing his arms and frowning at Yaoyorozu. “If Kirishima trusts him, so do I.”

Kirishima’s gaze softens at that. “Thanks, Tetsu.”

“Okay, enough of this! I don’t care about the witcher.” Mina steps forward again, undaunted this time by the burn of Bakugou’s glare. She sniffles a bit, wiping at her eyes, but her voice is strong and doesn’t waver. “There’s nothing we could say to you to make you come home with us, is there?”

“No,” Kirishima tells her softly. “I’m sorry, Mina.”

Mina stands in front of him, eyes full of unshed tears. “Then I guess this is goodbye,” she says. “I won’t fight you, Eiji, no matter what Her Majesty says. I just wanted to be able to say it.”

Kirishima laughs a little wetly and holds out his hand for Mina to launch herself into his one-armed hug. “Ow, careful,” he grumbles as she bumps straight into his wound, wincing; but then he buries his face into her shoulder and squeezes her tight. “Thank you,” he murmurs thickly. “You’ll see me again. You all will. I promise.”

“You have to go,” she whispers. “We can tell them that you were already gone, but it won’t stop with us. I don’t know if they would—would kill their prince, if they’d _hurt_ you, but—you have to get out of here.” 

“I know.”

Tetsutetsu steps past Kirishima, clapping him on the shoulder as he goes. “I’ll get Hagakure,” he says, and Kirishima smiles gratefully at him. 

“Make sure she gets home safe. I hit her in the head pretty hard,” the prince tells them once Mina’s released him from her bear hug. 

“She’ll be alright,” Tetsutetsu promises as he leans down to scoop up… well, what looks to be nothing but air to Bakugou, until he sees a vambrace similar to Tetsutetsu’s and Kirishima’s float up into the air as Tetsutetsu stands up. 

“The fuck,” Bakugou mutters, earning a chuckle from Kirishima.

“It’s just her magic,” the redhead quietly explains. “It hides her.”

Mina wipes her eyes again and steps over to stand in front of Bakugou, apparently only just now remembering he’s there. “What’s your name, witcher?”

“Bakugou,” he answers gruffly.

“He said you saved his life?”

Bakugou stabs the tip of his sword into the dirt and rests his hands upon its pommel. “Guess so.”

“Well, you keep doing that as many times as it takes. Got it?”

“I intend to,” he swears, puffing out his chest and peering down his nose at her like he considers it a challenge.

She grins up at him, black eyes shining. “You’re not so bad, then, witcher,” she says before spinning away from him. “Come on, Tetsu. Let’s get Tooru home.”

“Brother,” Tetsutetsu says, bowing over the invisible girl in his arms. Kirishima nods back to him before he turns away.

“But—” Yaoyorozu starts, but Mina doesn’t let her finish. 

“It’s too bad that Prince Kirishima was already gone when we showed up, isn’t it, Tetsu?” 

Tetsutetsu hums in agreement. “Yeah, and that treant ambush really sucked, huh?”

“A treant? We need a better lie than that,” Mina laughs, looking down at Hagakure’s floating vambrace. “Let’s go, Yaoyorozu.” 

Yaoyorozu lingers for a moment, looking torn, still staring at her prince and his witcher. “May your fire still warm you in the harshest of cold,” she says finally, bowing and turning away.

“And may your fires still guide you in the darkest of night,” Kirishima calls after them.

He watches their backs as they leave, waiting until they’re out of sight before collapsing against Bakugou’s side. “Shit,” he hisses, squeezing his eyes shut, looking suddenly very pallid. “Shit. ‘M sorry.”

“I fuckin’ _told_ you to stay put,” Bakugou grumbles, begrudgingly supporting the dragon’s weight and trying to get him to sit up against a tree. “It’s too early for you to be moving around.”

“Are you kidding? We have to _go_ ,” Kirishima says anxiously, pushing at the witcher’s chest so that he stops trying to lower the prince to the ground. “Once they get back more search parties will come. We have to go _now._ ”

“Yeah, I get the feeling you won’t be able to talk the next ones out of killing us so easily,” Bakugou mutters, scowling. “Just fucking sit down for a minute while I go get Roach, would you?”

* * *

“You know, I could tell you were rich by the hair and shit, but really, Red? A fucking _prince_?” Bakugou grumbles from over Kirishima’s shoulder—well, he _means_ to grumble anyway, but for some reason it comes out as more chiding, playful. 

He would just be walking right now, he really would, if they weren’t in such a haste to get into town. They’d decided that even if they don’t make it far, they can at least avoid a full confrontation in a town full of people until Kirishima’s ready to be on the move again. 

So now here the two of them are, both crammed together atop Roach, who isn’t a pony but is also by no means a large horse either. Bakugou, who’s shorter and smaller than Kirishima (though he’d be loath to admit that), still has to sit behind the prince, who can barely support his own weight. He’s bearing it impressively well, but Bakugou can tell the ride is nearing on agony for him—his jaw is clenched so tight that the witcher thinks it might just snap; and with his back pressed flush against Bakugou’s chest the blond can feel him tense up with every step Roach takes. And after a small stumble from the mare nearly sent him sliding off her shoulders, Bakugou’s had to keep an arm around his waist—gently, around the wound—which, to the witcher’s surprise, he accepted with surprisingly little offense or complaint (he must _really_ be in pain, Bakugou thinks).

“Mm,” Kirishima hums in response. “Kinda didn’t tell you that on purpose.” He sounds so bone-tired, but Bakugou’s honestly—okay, not nervous, he’s not a fucking _nervous_ person; but still, he doesn’t like having to push Kirishima’s body so damn hard so soon when it needs to rest and heal, and he definitely doesn’t like the idea of letting the dragon pass out, so he tries to keep him talking. 

“Oh, yeah? Why’s that, Your Highness?” He smirks, proud to have somehow found a tone that makes _Your Highness_ sound like a demeaning nickname.

“So that you wouldn’t call me _that,_ ” Kirishima groans, rocking his head back onto Bakugou’s shoulder. “And also, I don’t know, I just don’t want my ass kissed or anything.”

“You fuckin’ kidding me? I’d be more apt just to tell you to get fucked. In fact, I will. Get fucked.”

Kirishima laughs, but the end of it’s pressed so thin it’s just a hiss, and his hand rushes up to pin Bakugou’s where his fingers are splayed out across makeshift red bandaging. “This is the one situation where I actually appreciate you saying that, so thanks.”

Bakugou grunts, his attention caught by the gemstones in Kirishima’s hair, which catch the moonlight every so often as they step through the dancing shadows of leaves. “So, what, this is your crown, then?”

“Yeah. Of sorts.”

“Hm,” Bakugou hums, studying a pale moonstone as it seems to turn moonlight into a liquid substance beneath its surface. “Suits you.”

Kirishima’s silent for a moment. The hand over Bakugou’s twitches, and for a moment the witcher thinks he’s having to take a moment to breathe through his pain or something. But then he just says, “I still don’t really understand.”

“What?”

“It’s just,” this time he really does have to breathe through it as Roach missteps and jostles them both, “you’ve already done enough for me, and even after all that you still swore to do it all again.”

“Hang on, cat-eyes, help me fucking steer. Roach keeps tripping and I can barely see shit in the dark.” Bakugou places the reins into the dragon’s free hand, leaning back to better support the both of their weight. “When the hell did I say that?”

Kirishima raises a dainty eyebrow. “To Mina?”

“Hm. Was that the pink bitch? I guess I did.” Bakugou shrugs, careful not to further disrupt Kirishima’s wound in doing so. “What, we’re gonna work together, are we not? Should I just leave you to bleed out the next time you get skewered by a fucking cockatrice?” 

Another laugh followed by a hiss of pain. “Quit being funny, ow,” the prince complains, at which Bakugou rolls his eyes. “I just. You’ve done more than you could even know for me. I’m just lucky that you’re the one who found me. I can’t think of any way I’d still be here, alive and—and _out_ , free, without you.”

“Well you _are_ still here. So shut up.”

Kirishima turns his head to raise his eyebrow at Bakugou and grin. He looks almost startled by their closeness, but all he does is sink his teeth into his bottom lip, smiling. “Never took you for the bashful type,” he teases.

“I’m not—fuck you, I’m not fucking _bashful,_ ” Bakugou snaps indignantly, using the hand that had been holding the reins to brace against the saddle’s cantle, leaning back comfortably. “I just mean… It just happened the way it fucking happened. It’s not like it was something I sat down and fuckin’ thought about—I wasn’t thinking at all. I just did it, and now we’re both alive and here and nowhere else and that’s fucking that. Quit dwelling on it.”

“What a manly way to look at it,” Kirishima says, grinning. “Alright fine, weirdo, I’ll stop thanking you for saving me.”

“How kind of you, Your Highness,” Bakugou deadpans sarcastically.

“Ugh,” Kirishima groans. “Don’t call me that, I hate it.”

“What would you prefer then, sire? It’s a bit early for ‘Your Majesty’, is it not?”

“Quit it,” the dragon complains, deciding it’s worth a few moments of pain to kick back at Bakugou’s shin.

“ _You_ quit it, you cripple,” Bakugou snaps as Kirishima winces once again.

Around them the trees begin to give way to pig pens and small crops of food, and the witcher reaches ahead to take the reins.

“Come on, inn’s this way. Let’s get you into a damn bed.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> stay tuned for bard kami next chapter...


End file.
